Thursday, January 7, 2016

IT News Head Lines (Overclockers Club) 08/01/2016

DEEPCOOL Shows Off Genome All-in-one Liquid Cooling Solution at CESDEEPCOOL is the latest company to throw its hat into the all-in-one liquid solution market with the Genome, which it describes as "Not A PC Case, But An Extreme Liquid Cooling Solution."
The system consists of an ATX computer case with a 360mm radiator,
three 120mm PWM fans, reservoir, pump, and CPU block. The case itself is
a full size ATX case with a side window and routing holes for cable
management. Users will be able to install four 2.5" drives and two 3.5"
drives. The Genome will be available sometime this month at an MSRP of
$249.99. If you happen to be at CES, then stop by Caesar's Palace where
the company has the Genome on display.

Kingston Announces Encrypted USB Drive
The latest addition to the Kingston
DataTraveler series is the DataTraveler 2000, a USB drive built with
high security in mind. The drive uses hardware based encryption through
the AES 256-bit algorithm with an alphanumeric keypad built-in to
provide access to the drive. It is "designed for global security IT
professionals, small-to-medium businesses and corporate end users who
require electronic data protection." All encryption is done on the
drive, removing the need for any special drivers and making it Operating
System agnostic. The drive is automatically locked when removed from
your system and the encryption key and password are deleted upon 10
unsuccessful login attempts. Flash business manager Ken Campbell
described it as the "perfect option to deploy in the workforce where a
uniform encrypted data storage solution that works on many different
OS’ are in use." The DataTraveler 2000 will be available in capacities of 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB.
Source: Press Release

MSI Showcases Plenty of Products at CESMSI,
a worldwide leader in computer components that was founded in 1986, has
chosen to unveil a wealth of different products at this year's CES. In
terms of laptops and mobile computing units, MSI is showcasing the GS40
Phantom, the GT72S Tobii, the GS72 Stealth Pro, and the WS72
Workstation. The company is also showing off various desktop units, such
as the Cubi 2 Plus, the Vortex Gaming Tower, and the Nightblade X2/MI2.
The Gaming 27XT is also on display at CES, which is the world's first
all-in-one computer that is capable of supporting an external desktop
graphics card. Motherboard wise, MSI is revealing the Z170A GAMING PRO
CARBON Edition, the X99A GODLIKE GAMING CARBON Edition, and the B150M
GAMING 3X. While the company is not showing off any new graphics cards
at CES, it is showing off various accessories such as three-way and
four-way SLI bridges, as well as technology advances and partnerships..
Interested
CES attendees can take a look at all of the aforementioned products and
more at the MSI booth, which will be available from today until January
9.
Source: Press Release

RIOTORO Launches the Prism CR1280 CaseRIOTORO
isn't a name you should be familiar with right now, given that it's a
brand new company, but it is formed by former Corsair and NVIDIA
employees who wanted to do something a little different. RIOTORO has a
presence at CES where it's showing off its first product, the Prism
CR1280 case. The Prism CR1280 is a full tower case fully decked out in
RGB LED lighting, letting users customize its look from over 256
different colors. The front panel trim and dual LED fans can have their
color customized to whatever suits your mood or build, with the front
panel controls providing easy access. The front panel not only lets you
select the case lighting, but also the fan speed: Performance Mode for
maximum cooling and Low-Key Mode for silent operation.

Inside
the case are separate compartments for the motherboard, power supply,
and drives to keep everything nice and cool. The dual front and rear
fans help direct airflow over the motherboard, CPU, and video card, with
support for more fans and water cooling to let you build to your
heart's content. A 140mm radiator can be installed in the rear, three
120mm rads up top, and two 120/140mm rads in the front, so water cooling
shouldn't be an issue with the Prism CR1280. The front I/O panel
features two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0, and audio in/out, as well as
the lighting and fan speed controls. Motherboard support ranges from
Mini-ITX to eATX, with eight expansion slots in the rear. Video cards
over 400mm in length aren't an issue, and neither are CPU coolers up to
180mm in height or PSUs up to 2200m in length. Cable routing holes with
grommets are plentiful on the motherboard tray, so you can hide your
wires for a clean and tidy build.
The RIOTORO Prism CR1280 case arrives next month for $139.99 and comes with a two-year warranty.
Source: Press Release and YouTube

Thermaltake Introduces the Core X71 and Core X31 Cases
CES time means plenty of new product, with Thermaltake
introducing two new members to its Core line of computer cases. The
Core X71 and Core X31 feature a design with water cooling in mind, with
plenty of space inside for whatever kind of rig you want to build. The
Core X71 is a full tower case, with the Core X31 a mid-tower, making one
or the other ideal for system builders. The Core X71 features a dual
chamber design that places the hard drives, PSU, fans, and radiators in
the lower compartment, with everything else in the top one. It allows
the motherboard, video card(s), CPU, and other high heat gear to be
isolated away and get as much cooling directed at it as possible. The
Core X71 also has a fully modular design, so you can remove the HDD/SSD
cage and set it wherever you wish inside the case. Radiators can be
installed in multiple locations thanks to the case's 250mm width, with
the lower chamber even supporting a 360mm rad on either side. Two 140mm
Riing fans are pre-installed in the front of the case, with a 140mm in
the rear to help aid in airflow if you plan to stick with air cooling.
Or for water, if you're only doing a partial water build.
The Core
X31 retains the modular concept of its big brother, but lacks the dual
chamber design since it's a smaller case. The X71 features a "2+5" bay
design, but the X31 is only a "2+3" design, but that doesn't limit your
creativity. It still allows for all manner of water cooling inside, with
a triple 120mm rad, dual 140mm, or even 200mm case fans possible. It
also is 250mm wide just like the Core X71, so fitting your gear inside
shouldn't be an issue. A magnetic dust filter up top helps keep
particles out of your case, with super-fine filters on the front and
bottom helping to block dust, too.
Both the Thermaltake Core X71
and X31 can fit video cards up to 420mm in length inside, a CPU cooler
up to 180mm in height, and a PSU up to 220mm long. The X71 can even fit a
480mm radiator at the front of the case (X31 is only a 360mm rad), so
size certainly isn't an issue with these cases. Each one has a front I/O
panel with two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0, and audio in/out, with eight
expansion slots each at the rear. The Thermaltake Core X71 and Core X31
will be available by the end of January, with the Core X71 priced at
$149.99 and the Core X31 at $99.99. The Core X31 also features an RGB
edition, which replaces the three pre-installed 120mm Riing fans with
three 120mm RGB Riing fans. It carries a $129.99 price and launches at
the same time as the others.
Source: Press Release

Patriot Announces New Viper and Mega USB Drives and SSD Enclosure
Patriot
has announced two new USB drives, the Viper USB and Mega USB. Both are
USB 3.1 Gen 1 compliant, with backwards compatibility for USB 2.0. The
Viper features a red and black aesthetic with a swinging protector for
the connector, so you do not have to worry about losing a cap. It will
come in 64 GB, 128 GB, and 256 GB capacities for $34.99, $54.99, and
$94.99 respectively, when it launches later this quarter.
The
Supersonic Mega USB has been designed to offer the performance of the
high end Magnum drives, but at a more affordable price. These drives
will be able to reach 380 MB/s read and 70 MB/s write speeds, so you can
access the 128 GB, 256 GB, or 512 GB of storage very quickly. It will
be available on January 18 for $49.99, $89.99, and $229.99, depending on
the storage capacity. The Supersonic Magnum 2 drive has also been
announced, and it will feature speeds of up to 400 MB/s read and 300
MB/s write, making it among the fastest high capacity USB flash drives
available.
For those looking for something a little different,
Patriot is also releasing the Gauntlet 4 SSD enclosure. It is able to
accept any standard 2.5 in SATA drive, both SSD and HDD, and uses the
USB 3.1 Gen 2 standard for to provide high speeds and does not require
any additional power. It will ship with two connectors so you can
connect its microB port to a computer via a Type-A or Type-C port. The
Gauntlet 4 launches at the end of Q1 with an MSRP of $39.99.
Source: Patriot and Press Release

Phone App Used to Encourage Safe Driving
Most,
if not all people know not to use their phone when driving, because the
distraction can lead to accidents. That view may be changing slightly,
thanks to researchers at MIT and the spinoff Cambridge Mobile Telematics
(CMT).
Using MIT research, CMT developed the DriveWell app which
monitors and scores your driving from 1 to 100. This score is based on
data collected on road types, driving smoothness, speeding, phone
distraction, and more, and all of the data is collected in the
background. Some insurance companies offer devices that similarly track
driver safety, but DriveWell takes it a bit further with its feedback
and scoring. Instead of just offering insurance discounts, the scores
can be collected into leaderboards, creating social games with badges
and other prizes.
In South Africa, which has one of the highest
traffic accident fatality rates (31.9 per 100,000 inhabitants), a
competition was run with some 65,000 participants. While the competition
ran for four months, after just two weeks the riskiest participants
improved significantly with 40-50% less speeding, less hard braking,
corning, and less phone usage, and in some cases the improvements were
noticeable after just two days. The next step for CMT is, naturally, to
bring DriveWell and its other apps and products to as many drivers as
possible.
Source: MIT

NVIDIA Announces DRIVE PX 2 System at CES
Information about what to expect from the NVIDIA press conference at CES this year began to circulate last month,
with a heavy emphasis on systems for the automotive market expected.
NVIDIA has delivered on those expectations with the DRIVE PX 2, the
successor to the DRIVE PX, which was announced at CES 2015. The system
will be powered by a pair of Tegra "Parker" SoCs and a pair of Pascal
based discrete GPUs. The end result of this is four NVIDIA Denver and
eight ARM Cortex-A57 CPU cores and four Pascal GPUs. The added GPU power
will help with the computational needs of computer vision necessary for
self-driving cars, packing an estimated 8 teraflops 32-bit floating
point and 16 teraflops 16-bit floating point performance. The added GPUs
will come at a cost of increased power and heat dissipation
requirements, causing NVIDIA to design the PX 2 with liquid cooling. In
the presentation, NVIDIA was comparing the performance to that of a GTX
Titan X, but worth noting is that the PX 2 will need to be programmed
with multiple GPUs in mind while the Titan X is a single GPU card.
NVIDIA reiterated its commitment to "develop a hardware ecosystem for
the automotive industry rather than an end-to-end solution. Which is to
say that they want to provide the hardware, while letting their
customers develop the software."
Source: NVIDIA via AnandTechRead More ...

HP Unveils EliteBook Folio Laptop
The EliteBook Folio is the latest laptop from HP and is "HP's answer to the MacBook."
The laptop measures just 0.5" thick at a weight lower than 2.2 pounds
allowing for easy portability. The small size means you won't be able to
get the fastest components, but what you do get should be more than
enough for any tasks you would want a lightweight laptop for. The Folio
is powered by the latest Intel Core M processors utilizing the Skylake
architecture, SSDs up to 512GB, 8GB of RAM, and a 12.5" 1080p display,
with the ability to upgrade to a 4K screen. HP claims that the battery
will last for 10 hours. The base model of the EliteBook Folio starts at
$999.
Source: The Verge

G502 Proteus Spectrum Gaming Mouse Announced by Logitech
Logitech
has announced the new G502 Proteus Spectrum mouse today, which adds RGB
customizable lighting to the already popular G502 Proteus Core gaming
mouse. It still has the PMW3366 sensor for best performance and accuracy
across a DPI range of 200 to 12,000. It also sports the 11 programmable
buttons, mechanical micro-switches beneath the buttons, and multiple
placements for the five 3.6 gram weights for altering weight and center
of balance from the Proteus Core.
The Proteus Spectrum is expected to be on sale in the US and Europe soon and has a suggested retail price of $79.99 (€89).

CyberPowerPC Unveils New Streaming PCs, All-in-Ones, Gaming Laptops, and More at CESCyberPowerPC
has expanded plenty throughout the years, offering custom built gaming
PCs to laptops, monitors, All-in-Ones, and more. Today it has a little bit of everything for CES,
with 2-in-1 gaming and streaming PCs, a curved screen All-in-One, new
gaming laptops, and even gaming PCs that are VR ready. The 2-in-1 gaming
and streaming PCs come in the form of the Pro Streamer series, which
come pre-installed and configured with OBS open-source streaming and
XSPLIT live streaming applications so you can broadcast your games right
from the start. CyberPowerPC pre-installs the software based on which
configuration you select, with three models ranging from an Intel Core
i3 to Core i7 Skylake processors for whatever quality you're after.
Other highlights include 8GB DDR4 RAM, 128GB SSD, an H110 Mini-ITX
motherboard, and an Avermedia Live Gamer HD capture card.
Moving
over to an All-in-One, CyberPowerPC took a 34" curved monitor from
Samsung and fit a full-featured PC inside. The Arcus features a
3440x1440 resolution and a 60Hz refresh rate, with up to an Intel Core
i7 Skylake processor and single NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN video card
inside. It can be either air cooled or liquid cooled, features dual 2.5"
HDD/SSDs, UDIMM desktop memory, a USB webcam with dual mics, and plenty
of connections to use this as your main PC or even a TV if you choose.
Its use of off-the-shelf components mean it can be easily upgraded, too.
On
the laptop side of things, we have the Fangbook 4 SK-X with G-SYNC. It
features an Intel Core i7-6820HK Skylake processor, the first ever
mobile K-Series CPU, and a 17.3" screen to display all your games. It
features a range of NVIDIA GeForce GTX mobile cards for G-SYNC goodness,
giving you smooth gameplay by syncing the refresh rate to the GPU. The
Fangbook 4 SK-X also has 32GB (4x8GB) of DDR4 2133MHz SODIMM RAM, USB
3.0, USB C, an SD card reader, HDMI 1.4, Mini DisplayPort, Killer GbLAN,
and 802.11ac WiFi. There are two other gaming laptops launching, as
well. The Vector is another 17.3" model with a 1080p IPS panel and an
Intel Core i7-6820HK CPU. It also has a GeForce GTX 970M, 16GB DDR4 RAM,
an M.2 SSD, a backlit keyboard, and more. The Tracer drops the size
down to 15.6", with another 1080p IPS panel. It also has an Intel Core
i7-6700HQ CPU, a GeForce GTX 965M, DDR4 RAM, an M.2 SSD, and a backlit
keyboard.
Switching to VR, CyberPowerPC is teaming up with Valve's
Steam VR and HTC's Vive teams to deliver a VR gaming experience without
breaking the bank. CyberPowerPC's VR line starts at just $999 and
features an Intel Core i5 Skylake processor and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 900
Series video cards. No other details are available on these just yet,
but expect that information before long.
The CyberPowerPC Pro
Streamer series is avaiable now, starting at $1899 with an Intel Core
i5-6600K and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 video card with Windows 10 Home.
There's also a "Standard" model with a Core i3-6100 CPU for the same
price if you don't want any customizations. The Arcus will be available
soon, but no price is announced for it just yet. The Fangbook 4 SK-X is
also availble now and starts at $1885 for the base model with Windows 10
Home. The Vector and Tracer arrive later this month, with the Vector
starting at $1800 and the Tracer at $1300.
Source: Press Release

Seagate Launches the Backup Plus Ultra Slim 2TB Mobile Hard DriveSeagate
has long been known for its hard drives, and with CES this week, it has
a new model to introduce. The new hard drive is the Backup Plus Ultra
Slim, the world's thinnest 2TB mobile hard drive. It builds on the
success of Seagate's Backup Plus Slim line, but drops the height to
9.6mm, making it 50% thinner than other 2TB drives on the market. This
means the Backup Plus Ultra Slim can hold over 500,000 songs, 320,000
photos, or 240 hours of HD video, or any combination of those and more,
giving you access to a ton of content on the road. It also features
200GB of Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage (for two years) and Lyve
software compatibility, letting you backup and share data from any
device or location. The exterior of this portable hard drive comes in
either a gold or platinum finish, helping it match your phone, tablet,
or laptop.
The Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Slim 2TB mobile hard
drive will be available soon, although no exact release date or price
was given at this time. The Backup Plus Slim 2TB drive is priced around
$130, so expect something similar for the Backup Plus Ultra Slim.
Source: Press Release

Hardware Roundup: Tuesday, January 5, 2016, Edition
A
new day brings several items along for you to check out, starting with
the Mad Catz L.Y.N.X. 9 Mobile Hybrid Controller. This controller
features a quite unique design, but has the capability to hook up to
your computer, phone, tablet, or TV by a variety of means to control
whatever games you're currently playing. There's a review on the
Thermaltake Core X71 case, a massive tower that features a modular
internal design to customize your setup however you see fit. We also
have two different coverages of CES, with one featuring a bunch of
articles and the other a podcast hitting the highlights of the show so
far. CES officially kicks off tomorrow, so expect plenty more coverage
here and at our affiliates!Cases

Rumor is No Assassin's Creed Game in 2016
Rumors
can be a lot of fun, but as always, remember they are rumors and thus
might not be true to any degree. A new rumor has appeared recently about
the Assassin's Creed franchise coming from someone claiming to be an
Ubisoft developer. According to the claims, the next entry in the
franchise is going to be set in Ancient Egypt, is being developed by the
team behind Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and is not going to be released on the yearly schedule. Ever since Assassin's Creed II
the franchise has been receiving new titles annually and this pause is
supposed to allow for a "complete revamp of the series." Considering the
stated time period predates the Assassins and Templars and allows for
greater freedom with the history, such a revamp should hopefully be
possible.
The supposed-developer shares quite a lot of information
actually, though no definite proof of any connection to Ubisoft is
provided (they just say to screencap their comments and look back at
them when Assassin's Creed is missing at E3 2016). This includes a
desire by the developers to try for a "Witcher feel" for progression and
freeform combat, the main character will be a slave or ex-slave, only
animations might be recycled from previous games, and that online co-op
has been cut from the series for now. Also the supposed-developer claims
that only programmers and technical directors have console devkits,
with everyone else on PC with an average spec of an Intel i7, 64 GB RAM,
and a GTX 670. "The rest work on PC since the ports to consoles are so
easy with the new gen."
As someone who has played and reviewed
every main Assassin's Creed game I want to share my opinion and admit I
hope this rumor is true. A complete revamp with the time necessary to
create it, could significantly improve the health of this franchise. Of
course this is just a rumor and could be completely false, but only time
will tell.
Source: NeoGAF

Nanoparticles Used to Etch Straight Paths in Semiconductors
If
there is one thing scientists have to bear in mind at all times, it is
to always take a second look at bad results. Researchers at NIST and IBM
were disappointed when their attempts to create nanowires failed due to
a contaminant, but then they put the results under the scanning
electron microscope. To their surprise, there were long straight
channels etched into the semiconductor they were working with, which
could have some interesting applications.
The researchers were
working with gold nanoparticles on indium phosphide and were expecting
nanowires to be created, but the presence of water completely changed
that. Initially a gold layer was deposited on the semiconductor, and
when heated this film broke apart to form droplets, and some of the
indium phosphide was absorbed by the droplets to form a gold alloy. With
water vapor present, these nanoparticles are surrounded by water
molecules that will etch into the semiconductor by oxidizing it. This
results in indium oxide and phosphorus, which evaporate away. At
temperatures below 300 ºC, pits are formed, but at 440 ºC and above,
long V-shaped channels are created. These channels are the size of the
nanoparticle, which can be controlled.
While this is not the
nanowires the researchers were aiming for, this ability to create
precise and straight nanochannels could be used to bring lasers,
sensors, wave guides and more to lab-on-a-chip devices. So far the
researchers have found this works with indium phosphide, gallium
phosphide, and indium arsenide, which are used to create LEDs and
high-speed electronics, but we could see it adapted for patterning
channels into silicon and other materials in the future.
Source: NIST